Sun Valley Clash Could Tarnish LAUSD Reform

Parents and teachers at Sun Valley Middle School signed up for a Los Angeles school district reform program thinking they would finally have the power to improve lagging student achievement.

But in a dispute that erupted last spring and continues unchecked, they’ve found they are restricted from making the single most important change at the school: picking the principal.

The popular choice is an assistant principal who, by district rules, is ineligible for the job because he has not taken the district’s written principal exam, which won’t be given again until 1997.

That restriction has prompted picketing and other protests, creating a nagging problem that threatens to tarnish the district’s highly touted LEARN reform program at a critical time. The unhappiness of a few dozen parents and teachers from a largely blue-collar east San Fernando Valley neighborhood has become a lightning rod for wider discontent over administration of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“This is a defining moment for LEARN and for the district,” said United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein. “What happens at Sun Valley will affect all the schools.”

Supt. Sid Thompson and other top district officials are banking on the LEARN reform plan to solve much of the troubles at city schools, as well as to answer critics who are campaigning to dismantle the nation’s second-largest school district.

But those who favor a breakup of the district say the Sun Valley controversy is typical of problems caused by a large educational bureaucracy.

They say that’s especially so in the case of selecting a principal, because the district has made frequent exceptions to the rule that administrators must pass an exam to get a school’s top job. The exam hasn’t been given according to an established schedule because of recent budget cuts.

In fact, six principals and 88 assistant principals are working under a special Board of Education rule that allows the superintendent to appoint administrators who have not yet taken a qualifying exam, district records show. That board rule specifically allows Thompson to promote administrators with special personal or professional skills.

Last week, Thompson appointed an interim administrator--John Liechty--to run the school, hoping that would quiet the controversy. Liechty recently served as the head of the district’s middle schools unit.

But the dispute is far from over, parents and teachers say. It was discussed at a citywide LEARN summit meeting on Friday, with Thompson pledging to resolve the problem. He was not, however, willing to change his stand against hiring Manny Rangell, the administrator favored by Sun Valley parents and teachers.

“We’re not willing to say, ‘You all come and apply and we’ll hire you,’ ” Thompson said in an interview. “I’m not ready to do that. I don’t want this to become a popularity contest.”

The Sun Valley school was also a topic at the teachers union leadership conference held two weeks ago in Palm Springs. With the support of teacher representatives from other LEARN schools, UTLA’s Bernstein said she agrees that parents and teachers should be allowed to select Rangell.

Bernstein said Thompson’s opposition to hiring Rangell as principal gives validation to critics who are skeptical of the school district’s commitment to reform.

Parents and teachers face a similar problem at Wilson High School, a LEARN school in East Los Angeles. They also want as their principal an administrator who has not yet taken the administrator exam.

The two cases have parents and others worried. If the district denies their choices for principal--defined as the key leader in LEARN schools--they say they might well be denied other decisions.

“We need to be trusted to use our better judgment and make good decisions,” said Jenny Samudio, a parent and LEARN representative at Wilson High. “Sometimes I feel like they’re afraid that LEARN will get too big and too powerful. Are they afraid that we are going to take over and start giving them orders?”

Under the LEARN guidelines, developed three years ago by a group of business, civic and education leaders, principals are to be interviewed and selected by a group of teachers, parents and other school staff members. The LEARN rules do not specify that the principal must be selected from the list of candidates who have passed the administrator exam.

But under an agreement between the district and the administrators union, the LEARN schools must abide by hiring guidelines used for all campuses. Those personnel rules require principals to be selected from an eligible list of candidates.

School board member David Tokofsky, who represents the Sun Valley area, has asked Thompson to review the hiring practices and, within a month, report ways they can be changed.

Tokofsky, who described the Sun Valley controversy as a “battle royal,” said the superintendent should appoint Rangell.

“They’re missing the boat here,” Tokofsky said. “It’s a miracle that the teachers and the parents--who historically don’t agree--have agreed on a principal. Are you going to stifle miracles?”

But Eli Brent, who oversees the principals union--Associated Administrators of Los Angeles--views the situation differently. If the rules are bent for Sun Valley, so goes the rest of the district’s 650 campuses, Brent said.

“If you do that, then the hell with all of it and why not just pick someone off the street?” Brent said.

At a meeting at the Sun Valley school last week--attended by LEARN head Mike Roos, Bernstein and Tokofsky--parents and teachers passionately described their reasons for selecting Rangell, a soft-spoken, easygoing administrator.

“His first priority is the students and that’s what we need,” said Carmen Baredes, who has two children at Sun Valley. “This school was like a plant dying and someone came along and started watering it and caring for it. If they take that person away, it’ll start to die again.”

The leaders of LEARN, which stands for Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, agree. They say the main premise of the reform plan is to raise student achievement by easing unneeded restrictions. The school board adopted the LEARN plan as its reform program two years ago, and has ordered all schools to become part of the program within four years.

Said Roos: “You’re trying to come out of an old culture. There should be a new methodology for a new culture.”

Rangell, meanwhile, is continuing to do his job. On a recent day, he walked through the school halls, walkie-talkie in hand, apparently embarrassed by the attention.

“I think it’s important that people can voice their opinions,” Rangell said. “Whatever happens, I really believe LEARN is a great program. This too shall pass.”

Until a final decision is made, however, the dispute will continue to attract attention.

Those seeking to break up the school district say smaller districts could more quickly and more efficiently handle such a problem. After years of futile efforts, breakup supporters this summer won legislation that makes it much easier to put a plan before city voters.

Many breakup supporters say there is merit in the LEARN reforms. But they argue that the program would be better implemented in smaller, independent Los Angeles school districts.

“A breakup is probably the only way to get LEARN fully implemented,” said Bob Scott, the immediate past president of the San Fernando Valley’s United Chambers of Commerce. “We’ve always maintained that LEARN is an excellent program. But it’ll never reach its full potential under the leadership of the LAUSD.”